as good as it gets?

my desk calendar gets imperceptibly thinner with each passing day as i tear off every morning another page, each representing another wasted opportunity for the cubs front office to do something miraculous to rectify 2006 and save yet another season under their ostensible guidance from angst, disgust and baneful mediocrity.

while some maintain that now is the time for temperate patience as jim hendry works to make this club a winner, this page feels otherwise. to be sure, the patience argument was valid at the end of november. but in mid-january -- with the holes this club has, with the payroll they've already expended, with the indications they've given -- that's simply no longer so. what you see now isn't radically or even materially different from what they're going into battle with in april; some fringe changes, but nothing that's going to amount to more than dressing the pig in heels.

last year between january 12 and april 1, the cubs:

extended barrett

dumped sosa for hairston

signed jeromy

shipped farnsie for novoa

signed chad fox and scott williamson to minor-league contracts

in 2004 between those dates, they:

extended wood and lee

signed dempster and maddux

in 2003 they:

signed guthrie

signed tom goodwin to a minor league contract

if that gives you hope, dear reader, for a massive facelift before the beginning of regular season play, you're more an optimist than i.

again, this writer will insist on refraining from overt predictions of what 2006 holds for the cubs on the field for a while still -- after all, some things certainly will change between now and opening day. but the extent of the changes that can be expected is well approximated by the remembrances listed above, be that to your joy or chagrin. one might guess, i suspect, which of those two emotions is being experienced with the writing of these words.